COLLEGE COACHES LOVE MULTI-SPORT ATHLETES

“Don’t succumb to the pressure that your kid ‘has to do this’ (specialize in one sport) to get to the next level. The myth is that if you miss this tournament or that camp that you won’t make it. That’s not true. I don’t feel like you get the best out of kids when they are playing a sport nine months out of the year. Nothing feels really special anymore, because they are playing all the time and feel like they have to be at every tournament.”

notable quotes from top athletes

“One of the worst things to happen to the game, in my opinion, has been year-round hockey... ...All the good hockey players seemed to play lacrosse in those days and everyone of them learned something from the game to carry over to the other – things athletes can only learn by mixing up the games they play when they are young.”

— Wayne Gretzky (pretty decent hockey player)

“The early teens are a difficult age because definitely you want your kids to grow up and do whatever they want to do; you don’t want to push them too hard in one particular sport. My parents allowed me to play volleyball and softball and basketball and soccer at one time and I loved it. I was playing all these other sports so it wasn’t too much wear on the soccer field and it wasn’t too much wear on a repetitive exercise.”

— Alex Morgan, USA Women’s Soccer

“Today, a lot of kids individualize in a specific sport. I think one of the things that helped me most was playing everything. I played basketball, I played football, I ran track. I even played soccer one year, [and] I played baseball. I think it allowed me to recruit different muscles [and] work on different things that I normally wouldn’t. And, it gave me a greater appreciation for the sport that I’ve come to love.”

— Larry Fitzgerald, WR for the Arizona Cardinals

2016 NFL Draft

Multi-Sport athletes took over the 2016 NFL Draft. 224 of the 253 2016 draft picks played multiple sports in High School. Not only do the pro's like well-rounded athletes, so do college programs (read more below).